Chapter 3

When Vince saw me in a uniform, an employee badge pinned to my chest, his eyes darkened in an instant.

He'd assumed I'd end up on the streets, or come crawling back to him like a drowned dog. He never imagined I'd have found a job—or that I'd look like I was doing just fine.

Sloane clearly hadn't expected to run into me here either.

She froze for a moment, then let go of Vince's arm and walked up to me, sizing me up without the slightest restraint.

"Well, look who it is. What's this—after leaving Vince, doing odd jobs in a place like this is all you're good for?"

I didn't argue. I only gave a slight bow. "Ma'am, please don't disturb the other guests viewing the exhibition."

"What kind of attitude is that?" Sloane's face darkened. "Is this how your gallery treats its guests?"

As she spoke, she walked over to a display table nearby. On it sat a bottle of premium red wine reserved for VIP clients, along with a few crystal glasses.

Sloane picked up the bottle, toyed with it in her hand for a moment, then let her wrist go slack.

The wine, mixed with sharp shards of glass, exploded across the floor—looking eerily like a shocking pool of blood.

"Oops, it slipped." Sloane covered her mouth, feigning surprise, but the satisfaction in her eyes was impossible to hide.

She turned to Vince, her voice a coy whine. "Vince, look how filthy she's made the floor. Aren't you going to have her clean it up?"

Vince stood where he was, unmoving. His gaze shifted from the shards on the floor to my face, as though searching for some trace of collapse, anger, or hurt.

But I showed nothing at all.

I turned and walked toward the storage room to fetch a broom and mop.

"Stop." Vince's low voice came from behind me.

I halted and turned to look at him.

He pointed at the glass shards and the spilled wine on the floor, enunciating each word. "Since this is the service industry, show some sincerity. Pick it up with your hands. Clean it up."

Several guests in the gallery drew sharp breaths. Even Sloane's expression flickered with a hint of surprise.

I looked at Vince. His jaw was clenched tight, his eyes carrying a kind of sick, stubborn insistence.

"Of course, Mr. Hayes."

Under his suddenly contracting pupils, I calmly walked over to the mess, bent my knees, and knelt down on the floor.

I didn't hesitate. I stretched out my bare hands and began picking up the glass shards, one piece at a time.

The stickiness of the wine mixed with the sharpness of the glass. Before long, my fingertips were cut open. Blood welled up, blending into the wine until I couldn't tell which was which.

Vince's face changed. The hand hanging at his side involuntarily curled into a fist.

"Enough!" Vince suddenly snarled. He strode over and seized my wrist, yanking me up from the floor.

His grip was powerful, crushing until my bones ached.

He stared at my hands, covered in blood and wine, his chest heaving violently, a flicker of pain he didn't even realize crossing the depths of his eyes.

"Have you lost your mind?!" he asked through gritted teeth.

I wrenched my hand free and looked at him calmly. "Mr. Hayes, I've cleaned it up as you requested. If you have no further instructions, I need to get back to work."

Vince stared at me, his breathing growing heavy. It was like throwing a punch into cotton—all his arrogance and provocation had become a ridiculous joke in the face of my calm.

"You really are… utterly shameless." Vince spat the words through clenched teeth, as if to mask his own frustration, then whirled around and strode out of the gallery.

Sloane shot me a vicious glare and chased after him on her high heels.

By the time I got off work, a torrential rain had started outside.

The wounds on my hands, soaked in the rain, throbbed with a piercing pain.

The raindrops struck my shoulders, icy and biting, and for some reason they brought me back to the night of my brother's first successful surgery.

Back then, Vince and I had been like a pair of devoted lovers.

When my brother was wheeled into the operating room, I wept and prayed, and Vince turned down a major project to stay with me the entire night.

"Don't be afraid," he'd said. "I'm here."

It was that single sentence that made me believe that if I was obedient enough, good enough, that apartment could slowly become our home.

Until two months ago, when I saw a document on the table.

A draft of a prenuptial agreement. In the counterparty's signature line was written the name Sloane.

I carried that sheet of paper over to him, my fingers trembling.

"What is this?"

Vince looked up, his expression unruffled. "You've seen it. A family alliance. It was settled long ago."

My voice dropped so low it was almost like talking to myself. "Then what about me?"

He sighed, as though he found it all a nuisance.

"Maeve, you've crossed a line. When I said I'd take care of you, I meant it literally—I provide you a life, you keep me company, and that's all. If you've started having other ideas, then we end it right here."

That day, I said I wanted to leave.

Vince only looked at me indifferently.

"I've given you all this, and you think you can just walk away whenever you please? I haven't had my fill yet. It's not for you to decide when this ends."

Within three days, my brother's VIP bed at the private hospital was cut off.

I trudged through the rain, moving my feet mechanically.

When I reached the intersection, a car spun out of control and came tearing through the curtain of rain. Its blinding high beams stripped away my vision in an instant.

Accompanied by the shrill screech of tires grinding against the ground, a violent impact tore through my body in an instant.

Warm blood surged from my head, from my mouth, quickly scattered by the cold rain.

In the last second before my consciousness sank into boundless darkness, I seemed to hear a heart-wrenching roar.

"Maeve!!!"

The voice sounded almost exactly like Vince.

But how could he make a sound like that? A man so lofty, so far above it all—he would never lose control over a mere toy.

This had to be a hallucination, in the moments before my death.